Michael Review: Antoine Fuqua Tries to Uncover the Man in the Mirror in Fawning and Formulaic Biopic
Jafar Jackson paints a good imitation of his famous uncle in a movie content to recreate but never delve.
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The last several years has given us the gamut of music biopics, from the fantastic (Rocketman) to the ridiculous (Amy is still one of the worst). Regardless, nearly all of these movies see narrative control held by strong personalities, usually family members or others with a vested financial interest in emphasizing the good and ignoring the bad. It's insane to realize that Michael Jackson has been gone seventeen years, and yet we're only seeing a large-scale music biopic made about him now.
Director Antoine Fuqua, best known for the likes of gritty dramas like Training Day, takes the reins for Michael, a movie that takes the basic tenets set down by 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody and runs with them. Michael is a flashy Greatest Hits reel that's so clean it squeaks. There's little depth to the characters or desire to tell anything about who Jackson was, instead content to recreate moments in the hopes audiences will just enjoy the nostalgia. And, for many, that will no doubt work. But for anyone with an interest in Jackson, or those who don't know anything about him (this was a weekend people asked "Who is Madonna"), it'll be hard to entice them to learn anything outside of wanting to buy a Jackson record.
Running between the years 1956-1988, Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan's interpretation of Jackson's life is quickly established and moves swiftly over its two-hour runtime through several significant beats of Jackson's life. We meet little Michael (a fabulous Juliano Valdi) alongside his four Jackson brothers and one Jackson sister. (Clearly some off-screen things resulted as youngest sister Janet Jackson is just....not a person in this movie.) We meet the children already in the midst of forming the Jackson 5 at the demand of their abusive father Joe (Colman Domingo). As Michael and his brothers tour the country, the little boy is seen quietly reading fairy tales and Peter Pan, setting up the overly repetitious storyline that Jackson never grew up. Honestly, Disney should demand a percentage with all the House of Mouse iconography that pops up here.
It's immediately apparent how sanitized the movie will be with Domingo's Joseph becoming what passes for the movie's main villain. In reality, Jackson and Michael certainly had a well-documented contentious relationship, yet the movie almost seems afraid to reiterate what is already known about him. There's one scene of Joe physically abusing Michael, the rest presented off-camera. The children and Michael's mother Katherine (a wasted Nia Long) clearly live in terror but the history is never established. It's content to coast on what audiences already know about the familial dynamic and Domingo's established persona, and bearing, as a terrifying villain.
Domingo is certainly scary, but he's presented more as a conniver than an outright abuser. He's the equivalent of a stage dad, ready to make Michael drop everything to tour with his brothers even after his son is a superstar. One fleeting scene sees Joseph tell his children he doesn't want to see them working in a steel mill like him, but there's no desire to go deeper into the world these people were living in that would show his mad desire to make his success. It also doesn't want to say Jackson was motivated by money. So he just becomes a stock baddie.
Most of Jackson's family are one-note, from Long's Katherine Jackson, referred to by almost everybody as "Mother," who makes concerned faces and provides encouragement to her son. Even Michael's brothers become four people in his life, not a unit. This becomes a bit silly during the film's final concert sequence when the camera gives all the brother's a close-up leaving the audience to try to remember everyone's names.
In this interpretation of Michael Jackson's life, success is immediate and constant. Jackson sings and immediately his father meets Suzanne de Passe (Laura Harrier) from Motown. The next scene, little Michael is hanging with Motown founder Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate). Next scene, the Jackson 5 are a smash. And this cycle repeats itself for two hours. There's no struggle to Jackson's celebrity nor is there anything that shakes it until the film's final third when, during the filming of a Pepsi ad, Jackson's hair is set on fire after catching the spark of a pyrotechnic. Even then, what is set up as a moment of triumph for Michael to make a combat is a scene about a wearing a wig and then Michael getting back on-stage like absolutely nothing happened.
This makes for a runtime that feels like a car dying out. When Michael is singing it's a rollicking ride because the music – pumping out perfectly on an IMAX screen – is phenomenal. These sequences are often outright imitations of real Michael Jackson moments so the audience can just enjoy a recreation of a moment they know with a song they love. But when the music stops everything grinds to a halt. The movie becomes a rote formula of: song. Success. Loneliness plot. Song. Success. Trouble with dad. Song. Success. Repeat. Even once Jackson is an adult, nearly everyone in his orbit is presented as fawning fan, who remind him over and over how special and near-godlike he is.
This could be because of how many people associated with the film's production have a vested financial interest or are just too close to the material to say anything objective. Jackson's son, Prince, is as an executive producer, as are at least two of Jackson's brothers and attorney John Branca, the executor of Jackson's estate. This becomes especially ridiculous in Branca (played by Miles Teller in a hilarious wig) becoming a central character in the narrative, a white knight lawyer who helps give Jackson his first break with his father. Throughout the movie, Branca returns to give Jackson pep talks and remind you about what a great guy John Branca is!
This vibe was "wasn't he wonderful" is most keenly felt in Jaafar Jackson's imitation of Jackson. Jaafar Jackson, Michael's nephew, is good but it's hard to call what he does a performance. Swathed in prosthetics, Jaafar Jackson's performance is a surface retelling of what audiences already known about the King of Pop. He's quiet and soft-spoken, content to bond with animals and sick children than his own family. When he does bounce off other characters it's to show fear/tension, or just blandly quest for independence. Even during alone time, poor Jaafar Jackson is required to act opposite a CGI monkey. There's such little personality to the character on the screen that it's hard not to just say, "Michael Jackson was a nice yet utterly boring guy."
The movie weirdly announces a sequel like Michael Jackson was a member of the Avengers, and it's unclear right now when/if a sequel will ever happen. (Allegedly the original cut was four hours.) But the music's good. That's really all that matters for movies like this, and no doubt audiences will be just fine with that. As it stands, Michael is a fun and serviceable biopic that suffers from a lack of depth and a variety of cooks in the kitchen who over salt the works. It's very much a hagiography swathed in glitter and flash and, in the moment, it does what it sets out to do. Just don't expect to walk away learning anything new. Only established Jackson fans need apply.
Grade: C-
Kristen Lopez
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